Perfect Just The Way You Are
by ProDLnEC aka NLcsimiamifanatic
Summary: Their daughters didn't need make-up or frilly clothes. They were perfect just the way they were!


_Installment inspired by Adam Rodriguez's opinion of children's beauty pageants in this link to next week's promo!_

tv/116619_A_Kids_Beauty_Pageant_Turns_Ugly_on_CSI_Miami/#

_ Go Adam! I agree with you hundred percent!_

_**Perfect Just the Way You Are**_

_Characters from __A Very Delko Lfe_

"Kiddie" or "baby" beauty pageants sickened Eric Delko to the core. Using your child as your personal dress-up doll and putting on layers of make-up, fake nails and fake tans and oh yes, don't forget the 'flipper' or cover up imperfect teeth, to parade a little girl around like a miniature hooker was the most disgusting thing that was legal.

It should be a crime. There was no "grey area" for him at the topic, he had _zero_ tolerance for it. It was child exploitation at it's worst.

The second the show _Toddlers and Tiaras_ came on the television he had to change the channel or turn off the set. Even if these pageants were a girl's "right of passage" in the south, that didn't mean that his wife agreed with the activity-she didn't. He and Calleigh were told constantly that their two daughters, six-year-old Chloe and ten-month-old Nadya were "astonishingly gorgeous" and that they should enter them in pageants. Once the girls become women they could do whatever they pleased but there would no pageants for either girl for the next eighteen years. Her parents didn't know about Nadya just yet but being pageants had explosive amounts of pink and frills, two things Chloe Delko loathed the most in life, plus the fact wearing sneakers was frowned upon by pageant judges Chloe wouldn't fit in anyway.

The couple had all their children to the park one day after they had worked a case where a "baby beauty pageant" mother's was found dead. It turned out to be an accident but the whole pageant angle still left a bad taste in the Delkos' mouths. The parents learned that there was "kiddy" pageants and "baby" ones that catered to children Nadya's age.

This was even more vile than the two first thought. The _hell_ they would put _make-up_ and _hair extensions _on Chloe, left alone Nadya. Chloe's new pixie cut wouldn't be popular with pageant judges. Eric's parents and sisters complained all the time that they let Chloe cut her hair too short, that her "pixie cut" hair style made her look too much like a boy. This combined with the fact Chloe _hated_ dresses and shirts and flat out refused to wear them caused Chlorinda Delko to ask whether her granddaughter was "gender confused."

All Eric and Calleigh could do was laugh at this.

"She _knows_ she's a little girl, mom and she is perfectly fine with it. You're not here all the time. Chloe might not like baby dolls or barbies, but you don't see the other games she plays. At _worst_ she's a tomboy and there's nothing wrong with that. "

Eric or Calleigh dare not tell Chlorinda that Chloe could beat half the boys in her karate class at sparring. This made mom and dad proud. As long as she didn't use any of the moves on her siblings there wasn't a problem.

Ryan and Natalia were no longer keeping their relationship a a secret. Partly because they now wanted what Eric and Calleigh had.

A family.

"Can I ask you a question?" Ryan asked Eric at the end of shift.

"Sure. What's up?" Eric asked. "You and Nat doing all right?"

"Oh yeah. We're great. I wanted to ask you, is parenthood everything you thought it would be?"

"More," Eric said. "In many ways. Why? You guys thinking about having a baby?"

Eric knew that Ryan and Natalia's relationship had been going on for a longer time than they were open about it.

"We've been talking about it. We don't know if we'd have as many as you two, though."

Eric laughed.

"Nothing wrong with that. We're just gluttons for punishment."

Eric couldn't see his life without being a dad. He knew that his wife could say the same about being a mom. Children could be a handful and exhausting and make you worry but they gave back joy ten-fold.

"You guys think you'll have more?"

Eric laughed and shook his head.

"I think we're done. But ask me again when Nadya and Zach aren't babies anymore. We might be broody again."

That was true. For now at least, not to forget the vasectomy only a few knew he had which could be undone, but for now four children was plenty for the couple.

Natalia was also talking to Calleigh about parenthood. She thought the Delko children were the sweetest kids in Miami. She had seen something change about Calleigh when she became a mother. She lit up at the mention of the baby girl named Chloe. Everything was now about the baby girl and Eric.

Calleigh knew Natalia would make a wonderful mother and hoped that she and her lover would have children.

Even if they didn't get married or even engaged first.

Four months later still without a ring, Natalia announced she was pregnant. It was thought that the pregnancy was a result of sex in the back of the hummer in the parking garage of the lab. The expectant couple laughed at this but knew it was possible.

When Ethan Delko heard he was going to have a new cousin, he also asked if he was going to have another sibling, he hoped they would say no. His parents laughed.

"No, honey," Calleigh laughed. "Mommy and daddy are finished havin' babies."

_Maybe_, she thought.

Either way the Miami-Dade CSI family was getting bigger by at least one.


End file.
